The Brief

Picking the next insurance commissioner could be one of the most important decisions Californians make for their wallets this election year.

They may have seen a big increase in their insurance premiums in the past couple of years. They might know someone whose homeowners policy got canceled. Or perhaps they’re trying to rebuild after last year’s deadly Los Angeles County fires.

If you’re not sure what the insurance commissioner does, here’s a rundown:

• Regulates the nation’s largest property and casualty insurance market, which includes policies for homeowners, businesses, landlords, renters and drivers. 
• Leads the Insurance Department, which reviews and approves premium rate increases. 
• Regulates life, health and workers’ compensation insurance. 

Whoever is elected to succeed Commissioner Ricardo Lara will have a long to-do list. For the past few years, insurance companies have paused writing homeowner policies or reduced their presence in California. That’s starting to change because of industry-friendly regulations Lara put in place, but premiums are still rising and the market cannot be described as healthy yet.

The L.A.-area fires last year highlighted other problems, such as homeowners dealing with insurers delaying or denying claims, discovering they were underinsured, or finding out there are no standards for smoke-damage claims. Frustrated fire survivors called for Lara to step down.

In a recent poll commissioned by the Insurance Fairness Project, a national insurance information hub, 62% of likely voters said they are very concerned about the cost of home insurance and 43% said they are not confident at all that California’s insurance system can withstand future extreme weather disasters.

Former insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who held the position two separate times and is now a U.S. congressmember, calls the commissioner job the second-hardest in the state behind the governor. Another former commissioner, Dave Jones, said the next commissioner needs to keep a closer eye on insurance companies and regularly examine their conduct, creating “clear enforcement triggers.” He worked on a blueprint with recommendations galore for Lara’s successor.

About a dozen candidates are officially vying for the position, though not all of them have active campaigns. The two who receive the most votes in June’s primary will move on to the November ballot.

CalMatters interviewed the five candidates who have raised the most money for their campaigns.

All of them are calling for more transparency and accountability from insurance companies within the law that governs insurance in the state, Proposition 103. They want to help reduce fire risk at the individual and community level. Most of them agree California should try to hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable for climate risks that are helping drive up insurance costs.

They want to reduce Californians’ dependence on the FAIR Plan, the insurer that’s mandated to sell fire insurance to those who can’t buy it from individual insurance companies. At the end of 2025, the plan had nearly 650,000 noncommercial dwelling policies, up from about 264,000 in 2022.

Here is how each candidate, in alphabetical order, plans to tackle the challenges.

Ben Allen

State Sen. Ben Allen.

(

Photo via the California State Senate

)

Last year’s massive fires in the L.A. area hit the senator’s district. Along with other insurance-related bills, Allen has introduced legislation that would give the commissioner more power to hold insurance companies accountable. After hearing from his constituents about the department’s handling of their problems after the fires, he wants to boost the number of staff handling consumer complaints and create a consumer advocate position in the insurance department, he told CalMatters.

Allen, a Democrat, would take a more comprehensive approach to risk reduction, including by creating funding sources such as state-backed loans for hardening homes, and by bringing together insurers, builders, local governments, firefighters and the state to work on solutions. As part of reducing risk, he wants to restrict new construction in high-risk zones, saying developers who are building in such areas are “basically freeloading off the rest of us.” He also wants to “carefully and sensitively” find a way to incentivize those already living in risky areas to move elsewhere.

The senator — a lawyer who will be termed out of the Legislature, where he has worked on environmental issues — said his eyes are wide open about how tough the job would be, but believes he has and can create the relationships needed, including with an incoming governor, to address the issues. On the role of intervenors, members of the public who can challenge insurers’ rate reviews, he indicated he needed to look into it further and that they shouldn’t be slowing down rate reviews — adopting a refrain by the current commissioner, who is seeking to reduce intervenors’ power.

He has received the most endorsements from the who’s-who of state politics, including Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, both U.S. senators from California, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, and more than two dozen state lawmakers. Jones, the former commissioner, also endorsed him.

Steven Bradford

Steven Bradford.

(

Photo via the California State Senate Archive

)

The former Southern California senator and assemblymember would establish a public-private partnership that would share risk with insurers to keep them in the state. What that would look like needs more exploration, Bradford told CalMatters.

The Democrat, a former executive at the utility company Southern California Edison, would invite insurance companies “to the table” when discussing land use and planning, and support a voluntary buyout program to encourage people to move away from high-risk areas.

He said funding could come from expanding an existing program in the insurance department called the California Organized Investment Network, which is backed by the insurance industry and invests in underserved communities, environmentally friendly and affordable housing projects, and more. Insurers’ investments in the program have grown from tens of millions of dollars to more than $1 billion in 2023, according to the commissioner’s annual report in 2024.

Bradford would push insurers for clear explanations when they raise rates, saying it won’t be easy but that because the state’s insurance market is so big, it “would behoove them to do what they can to be partners with California.”

He is endorsed by U.S. Reps. Adam Gray and Luz Rivas, state Treasurer Fiona Ma and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, plus Teamsters California, State Building and Construction Trades Council of California and other labor groups.

Merritt Farren

Merritt Farren.

(

Photo courtesy of Merritt Farren’s campaign

)

The Pacific Palisades home of the former Amazon and Disney executive was destroyed in last year’s fires. He became an intervenor and pushed for more information on State Farm’s request to raise its rates as a result of the fires, which led to his campaign for commissioner.

Farren, a Republican, would create CAL Reinsure so the state could provide a backstop for insurers. The entity would be funded by a fee charged by insurers and would eliminate the need for the FAIR Plan because companies would be more inclined to write policies, he told CalMatters. The authority could issue bonds that could be sold in the commercial market, and would be backed by the state, like municipal bonds.

He would want to “revamp” regulations that get in the way of allowing new insurance products in the market, saying that he wishes insurers had a premium product that charged customers more but would “pay out immediately on loss without putting them through the drama and trauma they have to go through today.”

Farren said he sees the commissioner’s job as one of consumer advocacy, and invoked his days at Amazon, where he says the motto was to be the most customer-centric company in the world. “You can be a consumer advocate and still appreciate the fact that there will be no insurance for consumers without insurance companies,” he said.

Jane Kim

Jane Kim.

(

Photo via Jane Kim’s campaign

)

The lawyer, consumer advocate and former San Francisco supervisor told CalMatters that the commissioner’s office has been “under-leveraged” and has the levers to protect people from the powerful insurance industry.

Kim, a Democrat and head of the California Working Families Party, has three main proposals around more government involvement, the main one to create “natural disaster insurance for all.” It would be funded by a portion of policyholder premiums that insurance companies would pass along to the state. The state would manage the fund, which would guarantee fire and flood coverage. Insurance companies would continue to provide coverage for other risks. It’s not her idea — New Zealand has the same system, and it allows the country to invest the premiums in preventive measures, she said. Establishing such a system in California could allow the state to invest profit from premiums that would have gone to insurers’ shareholders in its communities instead, she said.

She would establish a public option for auto insurance by expanding eligibility for an existing program that provides low-cost insurance to drivers who make less than $38,000 a year.

Kim also wants to provide Medicare for kids. She believes California should centralize all insurance authority within the insurance department instead of having managed health care handled by the Managed Health Care Department.

She acknowledges that her biggest ideas are for the long term and will require her to win over naysayers.

“I’ve heard it — ‘She doesn’t know anything,’ ” Kim said. “We’re all so tired of seeing candidates that don’t have political courage.”

Kim is endorsed by some big names, including U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — she was California political director for his presidential campaign in 2020 — Ro Khanna, the Silicon Valley congressmember, and unions such as SEIU California, the California Teachers Association and the UFCW Western States Council.

Patrick Wolff

Patrick Wolff.

(

Photo via the Patrick Wolff campaign website

)

The financial analyst, a Democrat who lives in San Francisco and has never held public office, obtained an insurance license ahead of his run for commissioner. Wolff told CalMatters that he has invested his own money in his campaign — $600,000, according to campaign finance records — and simply wants to help fix the problems he sees in the insurance market. “It would be the honor of my lifetime if I can do this job and really do this job well,” he said.

Wolff would create a report card that would grade how insurers handle claims based on existing market conduct annual surveys of insurance companies, which is now anonymized but which he would push to be identifiable. He said that would let the insurance department help customers decide which insurers to reward or punish for their behavior.

He would consider allowing auto insurers to use telematics, which companies use in other states to track driver behavior for underwriting purposes. He said it could help for more accurate underwriting and possibly even lower auto insurance premiums, but acknowledged privacy concerns around the technology and said insurance companies should be prohibited from sharing or selling driver information.

Wolff would roll out a dashboard that would disclose complaints about providers of life insurance. The insurance department is not making that data public, and he doesn’t see why not, he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Doctors and health insurers filed a lawsuit Friday alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature violated the law when they approved a healthcare tax that could substantially increase insurance premiums for Californians.

The lawsuit claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents a 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.

“California voters passed Proposition 35 and made it law. The state does not get to ignore that law simply because following the law is inconvenient,” medical association CEO Dustin Corcoran said in a statement.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a previous statement to CalMatters that the state wanted to balance the affordability concerns of privately insured patients against large-scale federal Medi-Cal cuts.

Newsom stopped short of opposing the 2024 initiative when it was on the ballot, but he warned at the time it would “hamstring” the state budget.

For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans.

Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.

“California is breaking the law by blowing through a tax limit voters put in place to protect Californians and businesses from higher health care costs,” said Charles Bacchi, CEO of the health plans association.

Doctors, hospitals, clinics and Medi-Cal insurers have argued for many years that the revenue from the tax should go toward improving Medi-Cal. They said that the state was inappropriately using the money to replace general fund spending, and that many providers were being paid far less than their services cost. In 2024, they asked voters to approve a limited tax that would be reserved for Medi-Cal improvements.

But Congress last year changed the rules on taxes used to generate revenue for healthcare, including the ones imposed on health plans. Rather than lose the money generated by the tax, Newsom proposed and the Legislature agreed to submit two taxes to the federal government for approval: one that complied with the 2024 initiative but would be rejected by the feds, and one that complied with federal regulations and largely disregarded the initiative.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration. Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.

Approved by state lawmakers at a time when federal science funding has become increasingly unpredictable, the bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.

“Scientific advancements are curing and preventing diseases, improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions, protecting our communities from wildfires, lowering the cost of food, and powering our economy,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the federal government to throw away that hope for a better future.”

Newsom joined Wiener to sign the bill Wednesday atop the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark built with voter-approved bond money in the 1930s that his press office described as a symbol of California ingenuity. He said the proposed science agency “does the opposite of what Donald Trump is doing (and) will allow us to double down on what makes this state great.”

It was a dramatic comeback for a measure that almost died in the Legislature earlier this year, when a more ambitious $23 billion version of the plan failed to make it onto the November ballot despite bipartisan support.

Researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere had joined with UC leadership to lobby for the bond, hosting rallies and inviting lawmakers to a science fair highlighting projects that had seen their funding stalled or canceled by the federal government.

There were plenty to choose from: The Trump administration canceled nearly $2 billion in research grants to the University of California beginning in early 2025, later acknowledging in court that officials searched for keywords such as “health equity” and “sexual orientation” in order to decide what to cut. While a court order restored much of the money, the National Science Foundation has since slowed grantmaking nationwide, and President Trump has proposed giving political appointees more power to veto National Institutes of Health grants that don’t align with his agenda.

This spring, the National Science Foundation canceled an additional $21 million in grants to UC Berkeley, accusing the projects’ lead researchers of accepting foreign funding without disclosing it, a charge some of those scientists denied. UC President James Milliken has called the disruption of federal research funding “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.”

Lawmakers nevertheless declined to move the science bond forward this spring amid worries about competing demands on state funds – including a housing bond on the November ballot and the possible need to backfill other federal cuts. But negotiations among bill supporters, legislative leaders and the governor over the summer led to the scaled-down version that Newsom signed Wednesday.

Along with the University of California, California State University, private universities, and independent labs would all be potentially eligible for grants from the new state fund. A $7.5 billion state fund would not by itself make up for the instability in federal grants – the UC alone received nearly $5 billion in federal research funding in fiscal year 2024-25. But supporters say it could be especially helpful to researchers in fields such as climate science that are critical to the state’s future but have run afoul of Trump administration priorities.

___

Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.

___

This story was originally published by Berkeleyside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say, likely damaging aging structures and forcing school closures.

The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.

While district superintendents in especially vulnerable areas are already planning ahead, some schools may be ill-equipped to handle punishing weather. At least 59 California school districts are seeking voter approval for bonds in the November election, and have identified the need to repair or replace “leaky,” “dilapidated” and “decaying” roofs, an EdSource examination of local ballot language shows.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sept. 21, ordering pumps and sandbags to be stockpiled near vulnerable areas, among other precautions. Federal flood data show roughly 20% of the state’s schools are located within flood plains. In 2023, heavy storms flooded schools in Alameda and Merced counties as well as one near Watsonville, where a levee ruptured.

“Climate-driven El Niño conditions could mean months of dangerous weather, heavy rain, strong winds, deep mountain snow and flooding,” Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference, adding that the public shouldn’t underestimate “the power of water.”

Preparing for a severe El Niño

As predictions of severe weather spread, there isn’t a school superintendent in an area that the El Niño is predicted to impact “that hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks already,” said Scott Borba, executive director of the California Small School Districts Association. Many small districts have aging buildings — some as many as 75 years old, Borba said.

“You’ve got leaks and dry rot and all the things that a super wet winter is going to just exacerbate,” he said.

While district leaders work with other local agencies during weather emergencies, they are largely on their own when making major decisions, such as whether to cancel school, Borba said.

“Sometimes you have some county office of emergency services’ support. But when it comes to making that decision, that decision lies with the superintendent alone,” he said.

One small school district leader who may soon be making such decisions is Raven Coit, the superintendent and principal of the 61-student TK-8 Peninsula Union School District on the south end of the Northern Humboldt Peninsula in Humboldt County. It’s perhaps the most isolated coastal school in California, roughly 600 yards from the ocean. Dunes often serve as a play area for students.

Coit took steps this year to try to limit storm damage. She had trees cut back and used money saved by deferring other projects to complete much-needed roof repairs. “There was a big storm that caused leaking. I’m proud to say that it won’t rain inside this year,” she said.

But the likelihood of impacts from El Niño remains. The school’s “in a vulnerable spot,” she said. Flooding could cut off access to the only road leading to the school. There’s a backup generator that she’s “trying to figure out if I can make it work.”

While nearly all the school’s students live nearby, many teachers do not, and may not be able to get to work. Local high school students are bussed to Arcata on the mainland — if buses can get through.

She said the school could also turn to remote learning in a crisis.

How El Niño may impact schools in coastal areas

One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas like Coit’s is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves.

They are slow moving, and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation.

“That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”

A worst-case scenario “would be an El Niño Kelvin, plus a peak king tide, plus a significant storm,” he said.

A Southern California school leader of one of those districts said it’s bracing for storms.

Don Austin, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, said that living on the coast, “I have seen our beaches get washed away with recent storms and homes destroyed.”

His schools have “roof leaks and other issues that will be heavily impacted by an El Niño,” he said.

The most impactful weather-driven damage to a California school in recent years was in March 2023 when a broken river levee caused the Pajaro Middle school near Watsonville to flood, along with the heavily Mexican immigrant and farmworker community it serves.

The school reopened in 2024. A complete replacement of the entire levee by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take a decade, officials said.

Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, said the agency is spending roughly $1 million to strengthen the levee, and that the breach that led to the school flooding has been permanently repaired. El Niño, he said, is the obvious concern, and the work is aimed at protecting the town of Pajaro and the middle school.

Leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District remain concerned about El Niño, but haven’t identified a temporary site to move students to if the school floods again, according to Peggy Pughe, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.

Asked what the district officials are doing based on their experience with the 2023 floods and the threat of El Niño, Pughe said they are “canvassing local neighborhoods, encouraging families and residents to sign up for emergency alert services.”

Data journalist Daniel J. Willis and staff writer Emma Gallegos contributed to this story.

In August, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul of the Head Start program, leaving early childhood providers in Los Angeles concerned about their ability to serve low-income children.

The proposed rules strip Head Start of many of its regulations and impose new requirements, like teaching in English only.

The public comment period ends Oct. 6 — after which the administration could finalize the new rule. It’s unclear when that will happen, and experts say it could be caught up in litigation.

Why does the administration want to change the rules?

Federal officials said the deregulation would provide for more local flexibility.

An administration statement said the moves reduce both regulatory burden and administrative costs, allowing for more available slots — as many as 236,000 Head Start slots nationwide — and save $2.2 billion.

“We are removing unnecessary bureaucracy, strengthening nutrition and physical health, trusting parents and local communities, and opening Head Start to hundreds of thousands more children,” said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. “That’s how we renew the promise of Head Start for the next generation.”

Earlier in the administration, the White House proposed to cut Head Start entirely from the budget but reversed course.

The case against the proposed rules

Head Start providers worry the new rules, if implemented, could be the start of whittling down a program that provides early education and other wraparound services for about 70,000 children across the state.

“It's a holistic program really designed to lift kids out of poverty and to set them up for future success, so what's at risk when the standards are changed are a lot of those elements and guidelines that support the program quality,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California.

For example, Head Start provides support services beyond education, like developmental screenings and dental care, which would no longer be required under the Trump administration’s plan. The new rules would also require documentation beyond self-attestation for families experiencing homelessness.

“Putting a lot of documentation requirements in place would be very onerous for people who are in really difficult circumstances,” said Donna Sneeringer, president of the Child Care Resource Center, which serves about 2,000 kids in its Head Start programs in northern L.A. County. The program opened up a Head Start center at a family homeless shelter last year.

The administration’s proposal also sets a 5% cap on administrative costs, down from the current 15%, which Sneeringer said will be hard for nonprofits to implement.

“I think many Head Start operators are really going to struggle to even keep their programs open,” she said.